By Colleen
Douglas
After leaving his servant Achmed with the caravan travelling to Altar Summit, Natat the Sorcerer was dying of thirst, he had wandered into the great desert searching for a nameless city of antediluvian kings and swiftly became lost in that endless waste. His supplies and camel had disappeared in a sandstorm nearly four days gone and now it seemed his doom was upon him, but a whisper carried on the hot winds led him forward;
Come to me, wanderer.
Would you dare gaze upon me?
Come to me, burn in the fire of knowledge and beauty.
After a long nightmare of sun, sand, and misery, Natat stumbled inside the gates of a ruined city. The ancient demoness Ereshkigal greeted him and restored his strength with words of healing and honeyed wine of no mortal vineyard. In return she bade Natat to remove the hundred binding runes that the Elder Gods had written upon her flawless body as a tithe. The glyphs held her to the dead place, punishment for the abominations she had led her worshippers to perform in primal ages. Fearing the wrath of the Elder Gods even more than the seductive demoness, Natat refused.
Ereshkigal offered to trade him knowledge of many unspeakable demons for her freedom. The mad sorcerer's lust for arcane secrets overcame his fear. He agreed and bade her speak.
For two days and nights Ereshkigal sang to him. Her songs were older than mankind, they told tales of the Great Old Ones; Tsathoggua, black toad of the abyss; Yig, father of serpents; Ahruman, who is called the lord of corruption and Pazuzon who breathes the black wind that kills men and beasts; even whispering of Yog-Sothoth, who is the gate and the key; of all these and many others she sang.
By the third day Natat could bear no more as his brain seethed with things no mortal should know, he begged the demoness to be silent.
Then Ereshkigal demanded her payment, she gave Natat ink and quill that he should mark through the runes that held her to a dead and forgotten place. But he betrayed the demoness, inscribing yet another binding to her perfect skin and then fled for the city gates. Ereshkigal's voice turned to a roar of curses and she prophesied that the knowledge she gave Natat would lead to his terrible demise if the tithe was not given. Natat stole a single glance over his shoulder at the horror that Ereshkigal had transformed into. Then he ran harder, praying his heart would burst and save him from the memory of what he had witnessed.
Natat was found two days later by the caravan, screaming at shadows and frothing like a mad dog. When he recovered his sanity, Natat put to paper all he had learned from Ereshkigal, promising to explore the secrets further.
That evening, retrieving a parchment from his robes Natat lounged on a fine rug, by the light of the full moon he studied the glyphs on some ancient scrolls, contained in a codex obtained from a tomb on his journey to the crypts of Kre.
Natat had made his camp away from the rest of the caravan. Such was normal for the sorcerer but this night his behaviour was different, he carefully unrolled a cloth embroidered with circles and mystic symbols, placing it precisely on the ground so that the glyphs aligned with certain stars. Sitting in the midst of the cloth he burnt noxious powders and began to mutter incantations in barbarous tongues. The other travellers assumed the heat and his previous ordeal had driven him mad, there was nothing else unusual about this night except perhaps the overly noisy bugs that droned constantly.
Natat could read the ancient hyperborean language however he was not certain of the meaning of the words he chanted from the codex. He suspected they were words of power for they seemed to linger in the air after being spoken. Perhaps the codex could summon up spirits of vast knowledge or some amusing imp from the netherworld. Natat had no fear of what the words might call up, his knowledge of the signet of Krit protected him from spiritual harm and Achmed was well equipped to handle any physical dangers. The chant ended, apparently with no effect.
His brawny servant Achmed and the other travellers had begun to drift into strange dreams induced by the Black Lotus petals that Natat burnt during his evening meditations.
Suddenly Natat tried to cover his eyes as though he had seen something he could not bear. Almost at that instant one of the caravan drivers dropped to the ground, his mouth opened impossibly wide and the droning bug sound issued forth combined with a bloody gurgle. Then others began to fall in the same fashion. Natat was curled in a foetal position, praying to dark gods to hold off the nightmare he hardly dared look upon. The Sorcerer clasped his hands to his ears but he could not shut out the sound of screams, ripping flesh, and above all the insect droning.
Achmed lurched from the spot where he lay dozing; clutching his stomach, he began screaming, bloody froth poured from his mouth. The man stood upright before Natat who stared with horror at the source of his agony; monstrous taloned hands ripped open his belly from the inside and yellow eyes gazed out of the wound. With a final heave that tore Achmed apart, the demon stepped into the world of men through the gate the sorcerer had unknowingly created. Natat sank to his knees before the gore covered demon and pleaded for his life. The demon towered above Natat, for a moment he stared down at his grovelling new master with blazing contempt, and then walked forth into the void beyond the worlds, for he was bound into service to this human by words that neither he nor the sorcerer understood.
Morning came, the sun's light shown upon the caravan revealing the aftermath of Natat's conjurations. Of the caravan not one shred of flesh remained, only the bones of men and camels scattered across bloody sand. Natat gathered his belongs and set out on foot. The tithe had been kept, the Swarm of Nebros had been fed and if he had any regrets for this deed his face did not show it.
For more of Colleen Douglas's dark, demonic writings, pick up a copy of her novel 'Origin' -
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